


Mirror of tomorrow

by Solrey



Series: You are worth it, you are deserving [3]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Depression, Gen, He wishes he could feel emotions, Inability to feel emotions, Mental Health Issues, Philosophy, Questioning, References to Depression, References to a personality disorder, San feels empty, Self-Esteem, Trying to Understand, Unrequited Love, Words to past suicidal thoughts, childhood bullying, deep thoughts, from Wooyoung's side but he's chill, kind off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28249077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solrey/pseuds/Solrey
Summary: The word 'feeling' itself was such a wide ranged word that no matter how much San would try to explain it, he couldn’t. Especially not anymore. Not after he has lost the ability to understand it, to feel them.To feel.What does that even mean?
Relationships: Choi San & Jung Wooyoung
Series: You are worth it, you are deserving [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541890
Kudos: 5





	Mirror of tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :)
> 
> This story is basically the most descriptive view on my own depression I have written ever since I started to experience it back in 2009. So yes, mostly if not everything San feels and thinks are from my point of view. And yes, the background of this is also taken from myself. As you can see, I literally just put myself bare here but I think it is actually a good thing to do. Depression can be different for every individual and it's always a good thing to understand that we all feel different. What might apply to me does not need to apply to you or anyone you know, yet I hope I can show that someone who might feel similar is not alone with this. 
> 
> This is my last fic for this year and it's kinda sad that it will end on this note but I hope I can come back with many more stories and updates in 2021. 
> 
> That being said, I hope you all had a few nice moments in this overall bad year and that the knew one will bring many good things.  
> Last but not least, Marry Christmas for everyone who will celebrate it. :)

It's hard to grasp, hard to understand and even harder to live with it. To have clear thoughts about this topic without sounding too indiffierent. 

Not that San had thought any different before, just that he had a name for it now. A specialist agreeing to his suspicion, to what he had always thought but never gotten a clear answer to.

Chronic depression combined with suspected personality disorder.

He probably should be surprised but he isn't, can't bring himself to say that his situation was  _ bad.  _ Because overall it wasn't. San was alive, living normally, making money, having family and friends. He was not in a  _ bad  _ situation yet at the same time it wasn’t the best either. 

San knew that thinking this way, making his own problem smaller, wasn’t going to help him but he was by far not bad off, he was still going steady towards the future. 

Okay, he might have a few deficits here and there but it was nothing major and San still could live like every other young person could too. He was able to go out and eat, to buy stuff regarding his hobbies or watch a movie which sounded interesting. Deep down, however, he knew he was different. That all of those things felt so different for the people around him. 

Just that he was unable to  _ feel _ . 

The word ' _ feeling'  _ itself was such a wide ranged word that no matter how much San would try to explain it, he couldn’t. Especially not anymore. Not after he has lost the ability to understand it, to feel them.

_ To feel _ . 

What does that even mean?

What could one feel? Was that an infinite amount of possible feelings and combinations? Was there even an answer to what  _ feelings _ really are besides emotions humans couldn’t control? Could there be an answer to a fact humans just accepted as normal without really questioning it? 

Was he supposed to feel something when listening to videos people found satisfying? What even could satisfy a person without feelings, emotions? 

Did they expect him to be deeply sad and emotional when someone died he almost had no contact to? 

Expecting him to fall in love and have seven children and a wonderful wife? Was that a life they envisioned for him with only happiness in their minds?

San didn't know, no matter how hard he thought about it. 

The last time he had felt anything close to emotions was before the year came around in which he got bullied by his classmates and underclassmen even though he wasn’t at fault. Had not been the reason those rumors and assumptions started. It was not  _ his  _ fault yet San was the damaged one. But it was never the fault of others, right? Did any of those childhood bullies ever come clean to what they have done?

They didn’t.

Children  _ murder _ with words and their parents have no idea about it. San wishes they would see it. 

See how easy children can slip into the mindsets of bullies and bystanders because they weren’t really taught to respect other individuals, at least often not in the way their children would learn for the future. And if the children learnt to respect others, it was mostly because they were forced to. The simple words of  _ you are unwanted  _ already enough to change a life forever. 

But was someone aware of it? 

No. The society closes their eyes in front of the victims, of those individuals they had broken and left behind. Saying they should build themself up again, they should stop crying and get a grip. Yet they tear those damaged ones down again and again, and again without any mercy. 

As soon as something is different, they are afraid. San had seen this himself. 

San had told his friends in later grades about his inability to feel and most of them were understanding, yet there were those who used it against him. Who tore open those wounds he had carefully knitted back together, letting him bleed out once more. 

_ San you have a heart made out of ice! You are totally dead inside!  _

That had never been true, not in the way they wanted it to be. 

But how could you possibly explain to someone how it feels like not to feel? 

How weird it is to know that laughing and crying are reactions made by his mind and body but not by his heart. 

That no matter how often he tried to move on, to search for therapy and talk about the bad years he had, he was still unable to love, to be happy or even be angry. It was just a feeling of absolute emptiness. Both within his mind and soul.

Those who accused him of being indifferent and cold, what did they know? Nothing. None of them had ever tried to understand him and seek a solution, a way to make it  _ better.  _

Because it was so easy to pick on those who were  _ abnormal,  _ outcasts of the group. 

They had no grasp how hard it is to live your life like this.There was no echo of his past relationships, no warm feelings for the family bond he should have nor need or desire to want anything. None of those things were part of San's daily life. 

He knew it was unfair to those who  _ felt _ , for those who tried so hard to understand him while San couldn’t understand himself. The wish to just be ' _ normal'  _ overwhelmingly strong on more days than not. San was aware that following his mind was tricky, filled with little pieces of hindrances he laid there himself. 

Maybe he didn't want to be understood. 

Why would he? He was not out for any sympathy nor to be the sudden middle point of everything. 

Yet, people came to him, acknowledged him even though he had always thought about himself as weird, an outsider with weird habits and no emotions. His classmates back in the days made no secrets out of the distaste for him but San couldn’t be mad, had only been mad a couple of times and even those moments where he  _ does  _ feel are over way too quickly, the understanding of those emotions slipping out of his palm like water searching for a place to escape. 

San had understood that his past had been his past and moved on. There was no other thing to do than that. 

At the same time he heard from the people around him who  _ stayed  _ that they would be sad if he was ever to give in into his depression and end it all, the way he had wanted when he had barely been nine years old. 

San was loved by a handful of people. He was aware of that. The dark thoughts of never being enough to fulfill a role in society still lingering and loud in his ears, even though his friends tried to argue against them. To pull San back onto the bright side. 

But what was really bright anyway? Life wasn’t just black and white but so much more. 

Just that he had never really had the chance to experience it like so many others. The ability to do so was robbed from him years ago.

Being able to name what was wrong with him had made things easier, also for those friends around him. They could research it up and see what it meant to be depressed, to be  _ chronically  _ depressed. That this wasn’t just a phase but something that would stay for a long time, maybe until the day he would die. 

That this underlying feeling of being always depressed was something he couldn’t just lose from one day to another. 

That the emptiness within him was something he feared but acknowledged, was something he could talk about when his friends asked him how he was. 

Even though understanding an  _ infinite  _ emptiness was something his friends would never be able to grasp until they would feel it himself and San wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy. This feeling of feeling  _ nothing _ at all. To be a hollow shell without anything inside. 

Though people like Wooyoung, who had become his best friend and San was still unsure about how that had happened, would argue with him about it. Wooyoung would even go out of his way to make lists of things San was good at, what his charming points were and so on. For this man was San more than the frozen hearted king people liked to see San as. 

For Wooyoung he was a light. A little shimmer in the dark night skies. 

San had saved Wooyoung’s life even when he hadn’t meant to, gave Wooyoung a hope to live on when San hadn’t been aware that such awful thoughts had planted seeds inside of his best friend’s thoughts. 

And for Wooyoung he would be a light that will shine forever, even if he can’t give the younger what he wanted, respond to the younger’s feelings like would love to. 

But Wooyoung was okay with staying at his side as the best friend he was, knew that San’s condition wouldn’t just change with a snap of his fingers. 

He accepted San as the person he was with all the imperfections. 

Wooyoung showed him that despite feeling like he had no worth in this world that there would always be someone who wanted to treasure him, to give him a chance when San wouldn’t give himself one. 

And maybe that was the only best thing San could conclude out of all the years of suffering, of asking and wanting to understand. Of those empty nights and way too loud days. Despite his condition never getting better. 

Wooyoung was there waiting for him with an outstretched hand and a soft, warm smile that reassured San of all the things he was unsure about. 

So what if his heart was made out of ice? Emotions locked in a cage?

What did it matter that he had never truly loved one and had never been as affected by his surroundings like others? 

San was still human. Deep down there were feelings, he was sure of it. They laid low and in the shadows, afraid of getting hurt again but San had learned to be patient over the years knowing that changes won’t happen overnight. 

Because in the end what would one define as  _ normal  _ in the twenty-first century? 

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
